The previous President, after the attacks of 9/11, engineered a war with a state which, though abysmal to its own people, had had no direct or indirect link with any terror attack on the United States. It was, if anything, a mortal enemy of the group which carried out the attacks, as that group saw the ruling regime as corrupt and un-Islamic. As the history of that war is being written, the regime sought to stave off war, willing to give the previous President anything he wanted, save for the regime’s destruction. Of course, the regime as it existed stood in the way of the grand plan to remake the Middle East; its destruction, not its containment, was the goal. Anything short of political—and literal—suicide would not suit the ultimate purpose. So the country and the world were lied into a war, which cost nearly 5,000 American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths; a war which was supposed to last a few weeks and pay for itself instead dragged on for nearly a decade, costing over $1 trillion. And the Middle East, far from being remade into a collection of benevolent American satrapies, teetered on the edge of all-out war for the eight years of the George W. Bush administration.

That President, however, was never asked to apologize for the disaster he had wrought. And if ever he had been asked to apologize in a face-to-face interview, he never offered one: no apology for the countless dead, for the treasure wasted, for the lives destroyed. It’s just not the done thing.

Well, it used to not be the done thing.

Barack Obama’s signal achievement was, finally, bringing health security to the world’s richest, most powerful nation. A health system teetering on collapse due to the crush of uninsured is, finally, being put on a sounder footing.

Its roll-out this autumn has been laden with problems. Many of those problems involve Americans who bought subpar, almost worthless insurance on the private market, now being dropped from those plans because they don’t meet the requirements of the American Care Act.

Mr. Obama’s constant assurance during the run-up to the Act’s passage was that if you liked your insurance plan, you wouldn’t have to drop it. And as most Americans receive their health insurance from the workplace, that was an easy assurance to make.

But now insurance companies, which made quite tidy profits off of these junk plans, are throwing people off of them, and blaming Obamacare.

And the media has latched onto this subterfuge as some great promise broken, trumpeting the “broken promise” without reporting that the vast majority of those being dropped were in subpar plans, which were no longer legal under the ACA. These consumers would now have the ability to go on the exchange and purchase cheaper, better insurance.

But, for some people, better an awful insurance policy than a much better one brought about by “that man”. And the media, in the form of an interview with Chuck Todd, finally got its symbolic pound of flesh, in which Mr. Todd asked the President if he wanted to apologize to Americans for his “broken promise”.

George W. Bush: brought about the country’s worse geo-political disaster, and has never been asked to apologize. Barack H. Obama: worked to ensure that Americans would never again have to face the threat of destitution because of medical bills, and has been tarred and feathered by our media.

We can be angry. We can be saddened. But what we mustn’t be is surprised.

One can argue that there never was a “liberal media”. But it’s safe to say that there used to be a more balanced media, one in which factual reporting and accurate analysis were the linchpins of the industry. If the reporting on Vietnam was rosy at first, by the end of the war its full horrors were being reported on honestly.

But that was also in an era when media ownership was far more diffuse. NBC and MSNBC are owned by Comcast, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. ABC is owned by Disney Corporation. Fox News is owned by News Corporation. CNN is owned by Time Warner. CBS has remained “independent”; but it too is a large multinational.

Corporations may be many things. They may be the most efficient means to organize economic activity. They may give their employees a somewhat remunerative working environment. But one thing for which they can never be mistaken are altruistic institutions acting for the public good. By law, publicly held corporations must return maximum value for their shareholders. And when the political winds start to blow against that basic dictum, no one should be surprised if corporations direct their media arms to wage a scorched-earth campaign against a President who is trying to bring back some commonsense regulation to a capitalism run amok, a capitalism which almost brought the world to its knees in 2008-9.

Corporations are not altruistic. Corporations are not “liberal”. They are engines of profit. And they will turn against anyone who wants to in any way curb or redirect that engine.

Of course, the humorous thing is that Wall Street has never seen profits as it has under the Obama administration. There is a very real possibility that the DJIA will close at over 16,000 to end the year. If Barack Obama is a socialist, he’s a very poor one.

But what Barack Obama is is a believer in the American dream. Not the nightmare vision of a nation of John Galts, thinking they’re world conquerors but actually under the heel of rapacious corporations, fighting for the scraps. It’s the dream which has sustained this Republic for its entire history: that we can make progress, that we can continually work to perfect the Union, that the next generation will do better than the last, and that we are a community, bound together by common ideals and common goals, the greatest of which is to live a good, human life.

That dream has never been more imperiled. And the laughably named “liberal media” is handmaiden to the attempt to destroy it. People like the Koch brothers are the epitome of silent movie villains, tying the citizens of this country to the train tracks to be run over by the train they conduct. Any truly independent mass media could make massive profits by exposing them and those like them.

But the media is a loss leader. News has never made money. At one point in our history, that was fine. And it still is, but now the media serves to drive a narrative: America is in decline, Obama is a failure, we need a new direction. And as President Obama scores successes in spite of the media, and as the country continues to move in a direction which frightens the corporations, the attacks get more shrill, more vicious, more unhinged. George W. Bush wasn’t asked to apologize for sending thousands to their deaths. Barack Obama was asked to apologize for, essentially, bringing good, affordable healthcare to millions who either didn’t have it or were underserved by the existing system.

The media is not interested in truth, but in driving a narrative. The media is not interested in analysis, but in coming to predetermined conclusions.

But with every tweet, with every blog post, with every conversation we have, WE become the media. And we can be more powerful, because we retain something it has lost: trust. No one trusts it, and rightly so. There’s a vacuum which we have to fill. If we do, then perhaps the American dream will continue for another generation.

Great essay LL. Spot on. I especially liked your reference to how increasingly “unhinged” and desperate the MSM is becoming in its propaganda. Truly effective propaganda is subtle, and not obvious. The hate and desperation are serving to force the MSM to unmask itself. More and more Americans are seeing the MSM for what it is, the communications arm of the GOP. This is why ratings are in free fall at CNN and MSNBC (most people don’t like being lied to or mislead on a regular basis).

All MSM seem to be peddling lies and spewing propaganda to achieve four goals: hurt PBO politically, prop up the GOP, depress Democrats and energize the GOP base with fake scandals. Not exactly what one should expect from the “Fourth Estate”, but this is the situation in which we find ourselves.

Each of us, in our own way (via conversations both online and offline, calling out lies and spin) can do our part to educate our countrymen of what is going on. Sometimes all it takes is one comment or one conversation to change a person’s perspective (especially if that person has not been paying close attention).

The myth of the “liberal media” must be destroyed, the “messenger” must be discredited and shown for what it truly is. The rise in propaganda and aversion to truth we are witnessing are not accidental. That is why Jonathan Karl was not punished AT ALL for basing reports on doctored emails delivered straight from the GOP. This is why Lara Logan will not be fired or punished for her sloppy reporting.

The MSM does not want to discourage its minions from spewing baseless propaganda against PBO. As a point of comparison, Dan Rather was FIRED for making lesser mistakes in reporting on GWB’s National Guard service. We must not forget that Dan Rather was the face of CBS news, and for them to take such drastic action against someone of his stature and tenure must have had a “chilling effect” on other reporters trying to take on GWB. The message was clear, if you come after GWB, you better come correct.

The message the MSM is sending its reporters today is that you can use what ever means necessary to harm PBO politically and you will face no consequences (your job is safe so long as you play the corporate dictated game).

And he deserves every note being played to him after all the racism, disrespect YOU, MK and the MSM has tried to tannish him with lies, untruth and outright hate because of the color of his skin.
We love you, Mr. President. Keep your head to the sky…….Eastward!
Hello everyone! Very busy these days. Lurking is a good thing.
Love you, Ms. Chips. Thank you all for keeping me informed so that I can pass it on every chance I get.
Have a great weekend!

HF, all of Chips’ followers make a lot of people, including family and friends. Let’s join in a campaign to give absolutely no clicks to any tv news station. It will save our having to apply for mental health care and will conserve our energy for the fight ahead.

Indeed Jackie. The only tv station I regularly sign in to is CSPAN (usually when there are important votes, or when PBO is giving a speech/presser/remarks, etc.) Occasionally I will give turn on my local ABC/CBS/NBC when they’re featuring non-news items – like entertainment series, sporting events, etc. But the 24-hrs “news” stations, esp. MSNBC no longer have a regular viewer in me.

I haven’t watched CNN since they got rid of Aaron Brown. And I haven’t watched MSNBC since Olbermann went emo. There are so many sources from which you can get your news without being tied down to the couch and staring at the tv.

We are lucky to have such an eclectic, and immensely talented group of contributors to the TOD family. Bravo, LL. Thanks for posting this Chips, I assume at this hour LL, is still recovering from excessive Gimlet binging!

I have just gone thru several weeks of ending of in spam. Chips talked to akismet, they asked me to contact them . The notified me this morning that I am fixed. You may have to go thru this too. It is a pain. But It did get fixed.

:lol: I sincerely hope you’re not having the same trouble as Marilyn, but I think it might just be comments with two or more tweets that sometimes get mistaken for spam – it happens lots of people here, eg Arapaho and Japa. Will keep an eye on it LP, if non-tweety comments by you go to spam then we’ll get on to the all-nuking Akismet!

Just wanted to make you aware…..hell I didn’t realize it until a few days ago. No rush, Chips. The only frustrating thing is I can’t take my/other TOD regulars comments out of moderation/spam unless it is one of my threads. Hope I didn’t proverbially talk your ear off :)

Thank YOU LL! This article resonates powerfully at a time when people are thinking exactly the same but can’t articulate so eloquently as you have done here. I see that it’s getting a lot of retweets on The Twitterz… :)

Bravo Bravo LL. Every syllable you wrote is The Truth. We know it at TOD and I believe that the word is spreading. MSM is Propagnda and Gossip, not facts.

So, to re-cap on this most excellent day: SOS John Kerry in Geneva. High hopes for this.
WH, Harkin, Miller pushing $10.10 minimum wage. Nothing will do more for this country than a wage hike for millions.
Everyday in every way more and more of our citizens are signing up for health care that is affordable and reliable.
Better than expected jobs numbers. Over one hundred thousand families have new paychecks.

What did I miss?
oh, I LOVE President Obama. The compassionate competent genius we are so lucky to have leading us. Thank God for more than 3 more years.

LL, thank you so much for this thoughtful piece! I will use it with so-called friends who take as gospel everything said on the major networks (except Fox which they already abhor), MSNBC, NPR, the NYT, and the Washington Post, assuming those are reliable liberal media outlets.

Excellent excellent post LL. It is true, there never was a liberal media, but there was a more honest media. Of course, that was back in the days when news departments were separate from everything else and not even expected to be part of the profit figures for a station or network.

Journalists were judged by competency, not how much money they brought in. When money enters the equation corruption creeps in as well and ethics and standards disappear.

The greatest lie the GOP was able to tell, and one which is still believed by so many people, is that the media is “liberal”. That would become the common response to any report which presented real facts that the right was uncomfortable with or which the right found to be negative toward them.

They never actually were able to say why the “facts” were wrong or able to present an fact based counter arguement. But beginning with Reagan, the very use of the word “liberal” became anathema and by merely attaching the word “liberal” to “media” they were able to discredit it to any people who would not take the time to research the facts for themselves.

Social media presents its own problems. Most people tend to engage themselves, whether on Twitter or Facebook or other sites, with people they consider likeminded. When presented with opposite viewpoints, there is a tendency to unfollow or block or defriend.

In fact, I would hazard to say that the rise of social media may have a role in increasing polarity rather than decreasing it.

Even here, where it is pretty much understood that we all support PBO, if someone questions something he has said or done that person may well get jumped on for being insufficiently loyal to the President. This is something that we have to be very careful about. I know that PBO welcomes criticism and disagreement, as long as there is some reality based reasoning behind it.

Whether here or elsewhere in the social media this quick to disregard others is a tendency we need to be careful of engaging in.

japa, I thank you for posting this comment. We all should read this and take it to heart along with LL’s excellent piece. Today is gearing up to be an exciting and informative day. Even UT’s Rise & Shine was awesome and informative.

And now, I’m waiting for President Obama and looking at a ship (I think that’s a ship in the horizon) :-)

Too little too late. They knew and they went ahead and started that mess. On another note we do have some good writers here on this site. Thanks LL for this article. I wonder what the media will do in 2017 when the President is gone? He will go on to a successful life and you will be left sitting in that same chair at the WH newsroom but without that sneer on your face. I am talking about you Chuck Todd. Can’t you at least try to cover up the disdain that you are feeling deep in your craw? You will never achieve a quarter of what this President has achieved and you will never be President. PS I have to learn to tweet!

~But with every tweet, with every blog post, with every conversation we have, WE become the media. And we can be more powerful, because we retain something it has lost: trust. No one trusts it, and rightly so. There’s a vacuum which we have to fill. If we do, then perhaps the American dream will continue for another generation~.

….In lamenting the IDF’s presence in the West Bank, Kerry positioned himself directly opposite Netanyahu, for whom an ongoing Israeli security presence in the Jordan Valley is a stated crucial condition for an agreement. Perhaps more surprisingly, he showed no evident concern over the danger of a Hamas takeover in the West Bank where the IDF to withdraw, disregarding a widely held concern — borne of the rapid ease with which Hamas swept Abbas’s forces aside in Gaza in 2007 — that the official Palestinian Authority forces alone would not be able to hold sway.

His comments, which indicated an assessment that Israelis are unrealistic about where the region is heading, seemed particularly bitter. “The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. I mean, does Israel want a Third Intifada?” Kerry asked rhetorically, before lashing out at ordinary Israelis. “I know there are people who have grown used to this,” he said, referring to the current relatively peaceful stalemate. “And particularly in Israel. Israel says, ‘Oh, we feel safe today. We have the wall, we’re not in a day-to-day conflict, we’re doing pretty well economically.’

“Well, I’ve got news for you,” he said, apparently addressing the Israeli public. “Today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s or next year’s. Because if we don’t resolve this issue, the Arab world, the Palestinians, neighbors, others, are going to begin again to push in a different way.”

Netanyahu knows that increasing the West Bank settlements are a cause of concern for the Palestinians, but he can’t stop flexing his muscles and trying to get what he wants by bullying the Palestiniansy. He reminds me of GWB. By increasing the number of settlements, and having a constant presence of IDF troops in the West Bank, Netanyahu is angering many nations in Europe. PBO has warned him that Israel will completely isolate itself in a Muslim region, but Netanyahu isn’t listening. I’m not sure I believe he really wants Palestinians and Israelis to live together in peace. Surely, he knows that he can’t have everything on his own terms, and he’ll have to negotiate and compromise. Sometimes, being a bully can backfire, and Netanyahu is in danger, imo, of alienating Israel from its own allies. I love SoS Kerry’s frankness. I think he’s right–if Israel under Netanyahu doesn’t take steps toward peace, the Palestinians may very well “push in a different way,” and I don’t think it will be peaceful in nature.

Great post LL, You and others like you are the real media. You are so right, every blog post such as yours, every tweet, makes us more powerful, frees us from ever having to watch or listen to the faux news media of radio and TV. Thank you, thank you Chips for this site that has made this possible.

Mark Halperin just said the media is not rooting for the ACA to be implemented.
Yes I know! Bc they are the ones being taxed more inside the law , to help pay for it.
Let’s not be so pretentious and subtle about the aforementioned.

Thank you for this blog post on this day! After watching the “Chuck Todd interview,” I felt as though I was kicked in the stomach. President Obama needed to come before the cameras, and to put quiet to the nonsense. I assumed he gave the interview to Chuck Todd because everyone knows how nasty this NBC political reporter is when questioning the President. When Todd called into question the President’s credibility writ large for the future, I became quietly enraged. President Obama gave him a perfect answer, but we know this will be fodder for the next news cycle, and for the weekend news shows. Liberal Librarians’ blog post helps to calm my emotions!

Thank you, Chipsticks, and thank you to all TOD blog warriors! This community is my rock! We must begin now to work to get the House in Democratic leadership for 2014, and we have to work to maintain the Senate in Democratic leadership. Where-ever we may live in our nation, we must talk to our neighbors to tell them what we hear and read in this community. Information is power. If we tell others the truth about our President, then they may be more inclined to listen when democrats reach out for their votes. The republicans lie, cheat, and steal! They have NO shame, but they love power and money. We know we can do this. Yes, We Can!

Reblogged this on While you were sleeping and commented:
As I sat watching Chuck Todd ‘interview’ President Obama I could feel my anger and outrage building inside. Who does this reporter think he is?S How dare he question the integrity and motives of our President? Our President whose ‘crime’ is trying to ensure that every American who purchases insurance receives the coverage he pays for…and ensuring that those who cannot afford insurance are not left uncovered but given a path to a healthier and financially secure future. Instead, he is demonized, called a villain, treated as a scoundrel, liar, rogue. Never has a President been treated so disrespectfully, not by their opponents, but by our MEDIA. A media that has often been accused of ‘liberal bias’! Well, there was NO LIBERAL BIAS on display during this ‘interview’. Chuck Todd and NBC owes President Obama an apology. The President owes NO ONE an apology for trying to do the right thing for America. Instead of throwing obstacles at the ACA, we should all be pulling together to make it work; or show some patience at the very least. But instead of my lame attempts, I present the words of the Liberal Librarian from the Obama Diaries who does a much better job…

Hope these idiots in the MSM continue to unmask themselves and their pro-GOP biases. The MSM is not supposed to be “rooting” or “cheering” for or against a law. Funny how the MSM and GOP seem to always be rooting for or against the same things.

Thank you LL for the great summary of the state of the news we get these days, yet giving us hope through our own actions. I am currently getting one DVD at a time through Netflix in the mail. I am watching Aaron Sorkin’s view about the same thing on the Newsroom. So good, I recommend it, just as I do LL’s essay.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I could barely control myself as I watched Chuck Todd’s so-called ‘interview’ of Our President. I could bitch slap that imposter so fast…
Anyway, I was all prepared to write a scathing blog about NBC and Chuck Todd when I read your and well, nobody could have said it better. Keep it coming!

Great essay LL. Spot on. I especially liked your reference to how increasingly “unhinged” and desperate the MSM is becoming in its propaganda. Truly effective propaganda is subtle, and not obvious. The hate and desperation are serving to force the MSM to unmask itself. More and more Americans are seeing the MSM for what it is, the communications arm of the GOP. This is why ratings are in free fall at CNN and MSNBC (most people don’t like being lied to or mislead on a regular basis). All MSM seem to be peddling lies and spewing propaganda to achieve four goals: hurt PBO politically, prop up the GOP, depress Democrats and energize the GOP base with fake scandals. Not exactly what one should expect from the “Fourth Estate”, but this is the situation in which we find ourselves. Each of us, in our own way (via conversations both online and offline, calling out lies and spin) can do our part to educate our countrymen of what is going on. Sometimes all it takes is one comment or one conversation to change a person’s perspective (especially if that person has not been paying close attention). The myth of the “liberal media” must be destroyed, the “messenger” must be discredited and shown for what it truly is. The rise in propaganda and aversion to truth we are witnessing are not accidental. That is why Jonathan Karl was not punished AT ALL for basing reports on doctored emails delivered straight from the GOP. This is why Lara Logan will not be fired or punished for her sloppy reporting. The MSM does not want to discourage its minions from spewing baseless propaganda against PBO. As a point of comparison, Dan Rather was FIRED for making lesser mistakes in reporting on GWB’s National Guard service. We must not forget that Dan Rather was the face of CBS news, and for them to take such drastic action against someone of his stature and tenure must have had a “chilling effect” on other reporters trying to take on GWB. The message was clear, if you come after GWB, you better come correct. The message the MSM is sending its reporters today is that you can use what ever means necessary to harm PBO politically and you will face no consequences (your job is safe so long as you play the corporate dictated game).

I applaud this excellent commentary, Eric! It’s worthy of front-page consideration :) You are spot-on in your analysis that there will be no negative consequences for the perpetrators of false info where the media is concerned.

you are so right. It is a sad state of affairs when my middle schoolers come to me to say Mom, I have to do a summary of current events and it has to be a national event and my response is well, you are not allowed to use anything from Fox, you can’t use msnbc, nbc, cnn, cbs etc. etc etc. I tell my kids sadly there is no media left with any semblance of journalistic integrity and they are nothing but a bunch of propaganda artists who have no interest in providing fact based analysis to the general public. They are all bought and paid for.

Then I have to go to TOD, search the links pick an article and say… here you go, you can use this.

It makes absolutely no sense at all. The media should be held accountable and should be penalized (to include fines and jail terms) for deliberately pushing lies as facts.

Adding my praise to this beautifully written piece, LL. You told all the truths and made clear the very sad state of our present day news media, which is failing the public as it fails in its vital role in a democracy. (is media singular or plural?—I always hesitate)

Thank you Liberal Librarian for abrilliant essay that is a must read for all Americans! Thank you also EricFive for your brilliant response and additions. Your commentary further unmasks the so called mainstream media what they really are: propaganda organs for those who are determined to destroy President Obama.

Brilliant piece again, LL. Thank you for all of your brilliant writings. We are so very blessed to have such brilliant members in our family here. I so appreciate each of you, and want to express my thanks to you again. HZ

I know I’m late, but my thanks for this brilliant piece are huge! WHEN WILL the “liberal” media ask GWB to apologize for the horrors he inflicted on this country and the world!!!!!
People and historical artifacts were destroyed in that horrible war. We were in London in spring 2008 and everyone talking to us BEGGED us to elect Barack Obama…..this was even before the nominating process was complete. Then we went to the British Museum, and saw an exhibit of what history the American troops had destroyed in Baghdad…..humiliating. And GWB gets off scot free from the media and politicians…..disgraceful.
However….not too late. Cheney didn’t go to Canada for his speech out of fear…..let’s hope the world keeps building that fear in him and GWB until finally, when we have a new president, our country can to after them in court. We know PBO can’t do this…..but I fully believe he and Eric Holder have done the ground work for the next president.

GREAT post. I have been covering the awful, misleading media coverage of the ACA in the past few weeks and I am so happy to read a well-written article pointing out the hypocritical, poorly researched, and generally maligned media accounts that have completely twisted the reality of what is going on. Insurance companies have been screwing over their customers for years, and the ACA did not force any insurers to cancel their policies. Yet, the media, led by right-wing politicians and opponents of the ACA, are happy to let insurance companies off the hook for their bad behavior and use the ACA as a scapegoat. It’s sad that we have such a lack of accountability in the media, and so few conscientious reporters. Just like insurance companies, the media is always willing to put profit over the interests of the American public.